


cat leaps

by Aroundthepen (keithkohgane)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Break Dance AU, F/M, courtesy of starrycove of course, what's this?? another break dance au??, yes it is i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-05-27 04:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6270058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keithkohgane/pseuds/Aroundthepen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>dancing, sexual tension, and terrible jokes.</p><p>or, marinette is a contemporary dancer with an affinity for break dancing and adrien is the new cool cat in town who turns out to be pretty good too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. basic steps

**Author's Note:**

> as if there aren't enough of these already, i wanted to try my hand at this au because i've got cool ideas and a plot and everything. i hope you enjoy!
> 
> songs: x gon' give it to ya by dmx & bet you can't do it like me by dlow
> 
> (NOTE: if you look back to the very first break dance au [starrycove](http://starrycove.tumblr.com) made there was a request in particular for marichat so hold onto your knickers and jump right in if this is your jam. but i will try to fit in as much of the love square that i can.)

_i can’t take myself when i step up on the scene, and all these haters joking cos’ they know my swag be mean_ \- bet you can’t do it like me; dlow

* * *

 

For all of her supposed stamina from dancing six hours a day, sprinting all the way from the academy to the skate park leaves Marinette panting hard and probably very red in the face. She leaps over bushes and dog leashes as she speeds along footpaths and through parks in an effort to make it in time. Well. In better time than she would make if she weren’t running an Olympic 2000m.

Her bag bounces maniacally on her back, as if egging her on. The skate park bursts into view as she turns the final corner and she pushes herself for the last few metres, hoping against hope she isn’t too late. She slips and stumbles three times over bags before she finally skids to a stop in front of Nino.

“I’m here!” she wheezes, bending to rest her hands on her knees in an effort to gulp air back into her burning chest. “I’m here.”

He doesn’t look up from his laptop. “You sound like you’re dying. What was it this time?”

Her withering look doesn’t have quite the same effect as she tries to resuscitate her lungs but he winces satisfactorily. She slides her bag down her arms and reaches for her water bottle.

“Chloé,” she hisses, through heavy pants. She gulps down some water. “And her new playboy buddy.”

“I didn’t think she had any friends.”

Marinette snorts into her bottle. “Mm. He’s new. Almost as nasty as her, too. He stuck gum to my dance shoes. And when I called him out on it, all he could do was stutter and try to deny it.” She breaks for another gulp of water. “I was watching him stick it to my shoe. If he thinks he can get away with it because he’s new he’s got another thing coming. He’s one of those ‘I have a rich daddy so I can do anything I want’ types.”

“I think I heard about someone new arriving at the academy.” Nino frowns. “What’s his name?”

“Pretentious Douchebag.”

Nino laughs. “You didn’t say that to his face did you? His rich daddy would have a scholarship student like you thrown out by the end of the day.”

“No,” Marinette scowls. “I wish I had. It’s just my luck that I have both him and Chloé in my class this year. Can’t I just go with you to your music class instead?”

“Sorry, bro. Musical prodigies only.”

Marinette sighs. “This sucks. I was already running late too because Mme Mendeliev is having a bad week and taking it out on us in class—I’ve done enough technique to last me a lifetime—but then I had to try and find shoes from the lost and found so I could get here.” She wiggles her toes in the bright red high-tops. “Turns out they fit perfectly.”

Nino smiles at her sympathetically. “Well the upside to all of this is that now you have new shoes.”

“I have to give them back,” she says, shaking her head. “Someone could be looking for them.”

He rolls his eyes at her and turns his attention back to his laptop.

“So did I miss it?” she asks, dropping down in front of the low wall he’s sitting on. She leans her back on the cool concrete and waits for her heart to slow down.

“Nope.” He pops the ‘p’. “Alix won’t be here for another ten minutes according to Alya. Something about her dad and the museum blah blah. I stopped listening. I still can’t believe she challenged Kim to a battle. There’s no way she’ll win.”

“Whatever you say.”

The afternoon sun beats down hot and hard on Marinette’s skin, uncomfortable after her sprint. She watches the buzzing activity in the park. Teenagers skate up and down the giant ramps on the far side, while right in front of them, a game of soccer is well under way on the gravel basketball court. Music blares from a speaker somewhere and a few guys practice their floorwork to the heavy beat. She scooches on her bum until she’s almost under Nino’s legs, trying to find some shade.

“Dude,” he sighs, but there’s no irritation in his voice. “We talked about this.”

“I’m too hot.”

Alya’s voice comes from behind them. “Hot damn.”

Marinette hears her high-five Nino.

“Alya,” she says, bending her head back against the wall to look at her. “Hey.”

“Hey girl.” Alya sits down on the wall just above Marinette’s head, draping her legs on either side. Marinette whines at the additional heat and pushes her legs away. “You should really put some clothes on. It’s distracting.”

Marinette frowns, tugging at her leotard and tights. “I just came from class. It was too hot for shorts today. I’m wearing a crop top. That counts.”

Alya raises an eyebrow at her. Marinette sighs and pushes herself wearily off the ground to grab her pair of shorts from her bag.

“You know, Alya,” Nino says, finally looking up from his laptop, “when you say things like that, it doesn’t sound very straight.”

Alya flips her hair with a smirk. “It’s not supposed to.”

“Don’t worry, Nino,” Marinette says, grinning at her friends and slipping on the shorts. “Alya still likes you back.”

Nino’s eyes bulge and Alya throws her cap at Marinette. Marinette laughs at them, batting the cap out of the air. She would be embarrassed, but the two of them have been not-so-subtly making eyes at each other for months and Marinette is getting impatient. She’s all for love blossoming in its own time, but there’s only so much of Nino’s ogling and Alya’s incessant—and really rather dirty now—flirting she can take before she locks the two of them in a room together until they admit it to each other. And maybe makeout a little. She can’t count the times she’s almost vomited due to heightened sexual tension. So she has resorted to gentle nudges.

Before Nino starts sputtering excuses about how he does _not_ , in fact, like Alya; that they’re just good friends, and romance is the last thing he thinks of when he’s around her, whooping and yells rising from the edges of the park call for their attention. They look up to see Alix strutting up to the centre of the basketball court. She slips the ball from one of the players and kicks it on target straight into the back of the net to the cheers of the surrounding spectators.

“What a show off,” Nino says.

Alya shoves him. “You’re just mad because she’s good. Kim is going down.”

They watch as Kim and his crew of dancers cross the court to Alix. She crosses her arms casually, a dangerous challenge in her smile. Kim steps into the centre of the loose ring that has formed around them, standing almost flush against her.

“This is going to be good,” Marinette breathes,  picking the cap up and stepping back to the wall to sit down.

Alya crosses her arms. “They are so going to bang later.”

Marinette slaps her shoulder with the cap.

“Hey Nino!” Kim waves at them from the court. “Turn it up!”

Nino grins and slips on his headphones. “Oh this one was _made_ for these two. Hold up.”

A heavy brass beat pumps loud and alive through the air accompanied by an angry voice. Cheers erupt from the entire park at the familiar song, and Alya rolls her eyes. Marinette rolls up against Alya with the beat, criss-crossing her legs and laughing. She gives Nino a fist bump.

Everyone turns to the battle. Even the skaters have stopped to watch. Kim and Alix swing their arms back and forth in front them. He steps back and gestures for her to go first.

She starts strong, already jumping into more difficult moves, her toprock flowing nicely. Her entire routine is clean, finishing with a solid freeze. Cheers and gibes bounce back and forth in the air as she steps back to let Kim do his bit.

“He’s all power moves,” Marinette says as they watch him dance, “Alix has style, she has her own flavour. There’s no way he can win just by flipping around the place.”

Alya nods. “He’s all over the place, he doesn’t care about the rhythm as much as he does the moves. You’re going down, Nino. Get ready to pay up.”

Marinette looks at Alya. “You guys are betting?”

She shrugs and Marinette smiles.

“Guys,” Nino says, slinging his headphones back around his neck. “Who’s that?”

The two girls look over to the outer edge of the ring and see a dark figure lurking, hooded and unidentifiable. He has his hands stuffed into his pockets and he’s hunching, but Marinette can tell he’s tall. There’s a slim build under the baggy black clothes his wearing. For all his effort to hide in the shadows and remain unnoticed, the neon green high-tops he’s wearing are eyecatching. He’s nodding to the beat, feet moving almost unconsciously. A dancer.

“I’ve never seen him before,” Marinette says. “Alya?”

Alya, who has lived her entire life in this skate park, who knows it and everyone in it more than Marinette knows her own street, shakes her head. “No. But I want to find out.”

She drags Marinette by the upper arm towards the circle. Marinette stumbles and her feet skid on the gravel as she tries to keep up with Alya’s quick pace. The cap falls out of her hands even as she tries to save it.

“Alya wait—Alya—”

They arrive just as Kim finishes, the circle erupting in another round of cheers and taunts. Alya lets go of Marinette’s arm and pushes her way into the middle of the ring, cheering a little but flapping her hands to get them to settle down. Marinette lingers behind at the edge of the ring to watch from between bodies, rubbing her arm where Alya left a red mark.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Alya calls, the twist of a grin on her lips. “I know we all want to know who won the battle.” She pauses for a few cheers. “But who wants to inflate Kim’s ego, let’s be real. Besides, everyone knows that every new dancer has to prove themselves worthy for this park.”

She said ‘this’ but everyone heard ‘my’.

“And it seems you’re a dancer,” she continues, turning to the stranger.

The crowd turns to look at him. Kim knows better than complain about not being able to claim his win, joining in the murmured jeers running around the ring. Marinette leans forward to see the stranger walk into the circle. He turns his head from side to side, watching the crowd, gauging their reactions. He stops in front of Alya and nods.

She reaches up to flick something on his hood and Marinette sees they’re little black ears. “Un petit chat noir. What are you good for?”

Marinette can’t see most of his face but there’s a bright white flash when he matches her grin. It’s something wild, something feral, that grin.

Alya jerks her head in Nino’s direction. “Hey DJ. Let’s see what this chat noir can do.”

“On it,” Nino calls back.

The music thrums out from the speakers and the dancer slides back and forth a little on his feet, loosening up his limbs before they start. When he does, it’s different to anything Marinette’s ever seen before.

He plays with the notes in his fingers, tossing them back and forth from hand to foot, foot to hand. The music travels on and around him as he moves, as much a part of him as his body is. He moves with an uninhibited freedom, flowing from one move to another, from standing to floorwork as naturally as he breathes. His spins are almost flawless, cleaner than Alix’s.

Marinette sees that same danger in his grin in his dancing. There’s a graceful sort of destructive power in him as he lands his jumps and his legs slice through the air in blades of green. That feral grin seems to grow the faster and longer he dances. She feels a thrill in her chest as she watches him, her hips moving in time to his dance.

She pushes in between people until she’s almost at the inner rim of the ring. The chorus of the song rises and the crowd chants ‘Hey!’ along with the singer. There is strange new electricity in the crowd as they watch the dancer perform with unbelievable agility and precision. It pulses in her veins and she feels herself smiling.

Alya catches her eye and raises an eyebrow. _He’s good._

Marinette laughs and gives her a thumbs up.

The dancer finishes the dance to the cheers of his audience and Marinette sees his alarmingly green eyes in the depths of his hood rove over them as he spins around to his applause. His smile changes to something giddy, almost child-like. His hands tighten into fists and flex, still full of energy.

“Well, Chat Noir,” Alya says, cocking her head. “You can really move.”

“Thanks,” he says, panting heavily. “I try.”

“Try harder and maybe you’ll make it into the crew.”

Surprised murmurs race around the circle. Alya doesn’t accept just anyone into the crew. She doesn’t dance anymore, but she’s the honorary captain and what she says means something here.

“Are you serious?” That giddy smile widens.

Alya regards him before nodding, waving her hand offhandedly like it’s nothing. “Auditions this weekend. Bring your all or you’re out.”

“Oh I will.”

“You’d better. I don’t like being wrong.”

Marinette snorts at her and his eyes flicker over to her for just a moment before they’re back on Alya. She walks into the circle rolling her eyes and starts to drag Alya out before they test each other any more.

“Well done,” she says to the dancer. “Earning her respect is no small feat. She’s very impressed.”

He steps forward to fully face Marinette. “What about you?”

He smirks with a touch of arrogance, of daring. Marinette raises her chin, pretending to appraise him properly. His smugness sparks faint irritation in her. She’s not going to inflate his head any more.

“Not yet, Chat Noir.”

His grin matches the mischievous glint in his eye. “‘Yet’ is just a promise for tomorrow, princess.”

Marinette raises her eyebrow at him, remembering the cursive lettering on her crop top that spells out ‘princess’. It’s not an invitation for nicknames.

She opens her mouth to point that out when Alya laughs and salutes to Chat Noir, pulling Marinette out of the ring with her. She knocks her hip against Marinette’s and throws her arm over her shoulder.

“He’s going to be annoying,” Marinette says, glancing at the dancer who’s watching them retreat back to Nino. His grin widens when he catches her eye.

“I think he’ll be great,” Alya states. “We can use a dancer like that for the next jam.”

“I agree,” Nino says. “He’ll definitely help us up our game.”

Alya looks pointedly at Marinette as she takes a seat on the wall. “Unlike some incredible dancers who don’t want to help us.”

“Alya,” Marinette huffs. “Scholarship student. Career suicide. If I enter competitions the academy doesn’t register me in I get expelled. Ringing any bells? They’d never let me apply to compete in a b-boying competition.”

Alya shrugs. “Fine whatever. Wasted potential is all I’m saying. You’d wipe the floor with all those b-boys.”

“Even your new Chat Noir?” Marinette rolls her eyes, picking up Alya’s abandoned cap and putting it on.

“Please, Marinette.” Alya leans back on her hands, letting her head fall back in an effort to soak up the sun. She closes her eyes and Marinette tries to ignore how Nino looks quickly at her chest; Alya is doing it on purpose. “You’re the best of them all. Even better than—” she yells the next part “—Alix who totally won!”

Marinette turns around to watch Kim’s face fall and she laughs. Complaints of injustice and shouts of contradiction rise up from the basketball court. Scuffles break out between Alix’s crew and Kim’s before someone intervenes.

“You weren’t even the judge!” Nino complains, slapping a crisp ten euro note into Alya’s expectant hand.

“Of course I was,” Alya says, stretching her legs lazily out in front of her.

Marinette settles cross-legged on the ground opposite them, flicking a small pebble at Alya. “That’s not very fair of you, Alya.”

“Yes it was. You’re both nerds. Shut up.”

Nino and Marinette exchange a fond smile. “Whatever you say, boss,” she says.

Alya smirks. “Damn right.”

Marinette looks back at the court again to see Chat Noir waving cheekily at her from the far side of it before he ducks out of sight. She narrows her eyes at the space he leaves, wondering if he’ll turn up to the auditions on the weekend. If he dances anything like he did today, there’s no way the crew can refuse him.

He’s a game-changer, that one.


	2. ball change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a revelation or two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the overwhelming reaction to the first chapter!! sorry i took so long to write this one, but i have another ongoing fic so i have to make time for both. thank you to [lay-it-on-me-lahey](http://lay-it-on-me-lahey.tumblr.com) on tumblr ([Ran](https://secure.archiveofourown.org/users/Ran/pseuds/Ran) here) for betaing!!
> 
> warning: this has vague origins spoilers so read at your own risk!!
> 
> edit: sorry i had to delete the chapter then post it again because it had problems updating my bad

_and they say chivalry is dead_ \- chivalry is dead; trevor wesley

 _i wanna last wanna last forever, i wanna dance dance dance all night_ \- yoga; janelle monáe, jidenna

* * *

 

Contemporary dancing may the love of Marinette’s life, but if there is one thing that tests this love it’s spending hours at a time, every single day, in the presence of Chloé Bourgeois. She never signed up for the amount of patience required when she applied for her place in L’Académie de Danse François-Dupont—patience she doesn’t have. She’d hoped that she at least wouldn’t have the same classes as Chloé this year, but Marinette has never been that lucky.

Her Royal Majesty Chloé Bourgeois has spent the past two days coming up with a truckload of new insults with which to hit Marinette. Her nastiness is reaching new levels and with each variation of ‘duck-footed hag’ Marinette has to try harder and harder to keep a lid on her irritation.

It’s not helping that the idiot of a playboy Chloé calls her best friend keeps making rueful, Puss-In-Boots eyes at her every day from across the room. He doesn’t do it to her directly, but they’re in a _dance studio_ , there are mirrors _everywhere_. The problem is, the more he gives his attention to her and not to Chloé, the more his behaviour is increasing her risk of ‘accidentally’ breaking an ankle.

To add to her bad mood, she’s had to train in her old dancing shoes. Getting the chewing-gum out of her current ones has proven impossible, and until she gets her paycheck next week, a new pair is out of her means. The ruined shoes sit on her desk, a sore reminder _not_ to trust the attempted approaches of the boy who put them on them there in the first place. He even has the audacity to think he can buy her forgiveness with a new pair of shoes identical to hers (much to Chloé’s chagrin). He’d left the box by her bag the other day in class and it had taken everything in her to walk out of studio and leave them behind without so much as a glance. Throwing money at the problem won’t make it go away, and she’s determined he knows this.

She is adamant about not giving in to him, so when class finishes up for the day, and she sees him approaching to talk to her, she almost sprints out of the studio.

She pulls her phone out to read the three texts Nino has sent her, snorting at the screen.

‘made a new frnd,’ reads the first one.

‘ok so he’s more of a charity case.’ is the second.

‘he was sitting alone @ lunch nd he lookd like a stray. i cdnt leav him.’

She types back to him, ‘good for u. Pretentious Douchebag hsnt stopd sulking. chloé still hates me but that’s not a new develpmnt.’

His answer appears almost immediately. ‘that suks. we can go get gelato? b out in 5.’

‘sounds good. see u. :)’

She tucks her phone back into her bag with a smile and walks briskly to the front door of the academy. Rain pours down fast outside on the pavement and Marinette curses her luck for the fifth time today. She rummages in her bag, trying to remember whether or not she brought an umbrella, when her elbow bumps into someone’s chest and she stumbles forward from the impact.

A strong hand grasps her upper arm to keep her from falling and she instinctively latches onto the person’s arms, pulling herself back upright in a strange sort of embrace. She looks up to find the apple-green eyes of her classmate and current source of unnecessary stress.

“Hi,” he says, and when he smiles she can count every single one of his perfect, white teeth. She wants to knock them out of his mouth.

Instead, she snatches her arms back and turns away from him, huffing. The rain outside is falling softly, but quickly, the kind that soaks you through before you’ve even gone far enough to notice. She steps right into it, stomping down the stairs.

“Please,” he calls to her, and she can hear him running into the rain behind her. “Wait.”

Something small in his voice makes her pause on the bottom step. It pokes uncomfortably at her heart and she draws her feet together and hugs herself against the cold. But she doesn’t turn around and she still doesn’t say anything. He stops a few steps above her and she hears him take a deep breath before he speaks again.

“I’m sorry for causing you trouble. I want you to know that I didn’t put that gum on your shoes, I actually tried to unstick it.”

She almost doesn’t want to believe him, but there’s a sincerity in his words that’s as real and tangible as the rain on her skin. She can see it in the creases under his eyes and the twist of his tentative smile. Her determination to ignore him and his sad looks is crumbling fast.

“This kind of thing is a little new to me,” he continues, eyes dropping to the ground. “Going to school, I mean. Having—having friends.”

Marinette is at a loss for words. He is utterly vulnerable in front of her, putting himself and his pride on the line, just to tell her he’s sorry. He pushes his drenched hair back out of his eyes and she sees a completely different person, the rain washing away her first impression like ink. The dim afternoon light brings the colour out on his cheeks that she hasn’t seen in the studio and he is beautiful. His earnest gaze glues her feet to the ground and her heart to this moment.

He twists to reach into his duffel bag, pulling out a very small, crumpled bundle of flowers wrapped in very expensive-looking, wrinkled paper. “My friend Chloé likes me to get her flowers sometimes when she’s cross with me. I’m not sure if it’s a thing for other people, but I picked them myself and I wanted you to know that I really am sorry your shoes were ruined.”

He offers them to her with a hopeful smile and thunder rumbles in her ribcage. She’s unable to break from his gaze and when she reaches tentatively to take the flowers from him their fingers bump before he places the stems neatly in her grasp. It’s an odd gift, but oddly comforting, like a kiss on the eyelid.

“Y-you’re giving me flowers,” she says dumbly as she strokes the broken petals of the daffodils, bright and sunny yellow in a pond of pink peonies and red tulips.

“Is that okay?”

His eyes are wide and unsure when she looks at him. “Yeah, o-of course. Yes.”

His smile is brilliant. “Great. And here, please take this.”

He pulls a pink shoebox from his bag that she recognises as the same one he tried to give her two days prior and extends it to her. She takes it this time, tucking it under her arm.

“Tha—”

A horn blares and a wave of water crashes down over her back, drowning her words and the rest of her along with it. She gasps and tenses, hugging the small bouquet and shoebox to her chest. The puddle water is warmer than the rain and it trickles slowly off her, clinging to her clothes and hair and leaving a layer of dirt all over.

“Oh!” he says softly, and she uses a finger to lift her sopping wet fringe out of her eyes and look at him.

 _Of course_ this has to happen, _of course_ she has to humiliate herself at this exact moment—

He laughs. It brings her up short—her thoughts, her heart—and he looks like a child, wide smile and squinty eyes. Something inside her melts and heat rises in her cheeks as she giggles with him.

He stops all too soon, clearing his throat and muting that free beauty she could see a moment ago. She mourns its loss without quite knowing why.

It abruptly stops raining. At least, it does over her. She looks up to see a big black umbrella protecting her overhead in the hand of a grinning Nino.

“Agreste!” he says, clapping him on the shoulder. “I see you took my advice.” He turns to Marinette. “Marinette, you’ve had better fashion days. So it turns out my stray was your Pretentious Douchebag.”

“What?” Adrien says.

Marinette is horrified. She squashes the ball of her foot discreetly on Nino’s shoe and smiles weakly at Adrien, ignoring Nino’s quiet “ouch!”

“Nothing!” she squeaks. “He’s kidding.”

She punctuates it with a glare to the perpetrator.

“Right,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Mhmm,” she nods. “Yep, see you row-moto—I mean, tomorrow! See you tomorrow!”

His smile warms her all the way down to her toes, even if she’s soaking wet and goosebumps are raised on her skin. It stays after he ducks into a sleek silver saloon car and even after Nino elbows her ribs to get her back for crushing his foot.

“That was unnecessary,” he grumbles. “You’re damn lucky I’m not the dancer here.”

She gives him the flattest look she can manage with her heart fluttering too quickly in her chest. “You are the worst.”

He shakes his head. “Nineteen years in this world, and still no one manages to insult me like you do. Be proud of yourself.”

She rolls her eyes and tucks the little bouquet into the shoebox, careful to keep both out of the way of more rain damage. Her fingers stroke the pretty cursive on the box for a moment before she smiles at the space on the steps where he stood.

“Marinette?”

“Huh?” she says, blinking at Nino.

He looks puzzled. “You good, man?”

She smiles. “You said something about gelato?”

 

_______________

 

Marinette blows her fringe out of her eyes and glares at the mirrored wall in front of her. She can see Alya sitting upside down on the rickety old couch that someone had dumped in the corner of the studio years ago, applying a cherry red lipstick with help from her phone camera. Her laptop sits forgotten on the couch beside her, a half-written article for her blog still visible on the screen.

They’re in the abandoned, dingy old studio that Marinette had found years ago, back in their curious teenage days. She’s been using the studio ever since to dance. When she and Alya met, Alya had introduced her to hip hop, and through that, breakdancing. Marinette has been exploring her ability for it here in the comfort of a dusty floor and silent walls, away from the watchful eyes of the academy. Here she can do what she loves without constraint.

Of course, with the absence of any formal instructors, it’s hard to improve as much as she wants to. She’s spent years studying and copying the methods of talented kids at the skate park and watching videos on the internet. When Alya used to compete she’d pick up tips from other competitors and coaches, and Alya herself has been a brilliant teacher. Nino too, when he cares enough to comment on her dancing. She even experiments with her own moves, and as her mother tells her, she can achieve endlessly as long as she has endless imagination.

She knows she’s not bad at it, but like everything else, there are nights like tonight when she just can’t get the steps right.

“Your feet are off on three,” Alya sings.

“I know,” Marinette growls. She’s been working on this routine for weeks, choreographing and perfecting it, but she always ends it stumbling with the same turn tripping her up every time.

Alya pops her lips, completely unfazed by Marinette’s outbursts of irritation this whole evening. “Try pulling your leg in earlier and tighter.”

“Okay. From the top, then.”

Alya hits a button on the speakers and the song starts to play again. Marinette bounces on her toes, swinging her arms back and forth until she finds her hook. Then she feels the beat in her bones, and her body starts to move in rhythm. She’s conscious of it this time around, concentrating on each and every movement she makes, each stretch and clench of her muscles and perfecting the dance to the extension of her fingers.

She makes it to the turn, Alya’s suggestion clear in her head and she tucks her leg in tight and fast, landing the spin perfectly. A broad grin stretches on her face as she continues, finishing the routine with an elated energy despite the sweat drenching her and the fatigue in her head.

Her final pose falls apart with satisfaction and she jogs over to high-five Alya before slumping to a knotted mess on the floor beside her. Alya passes her her bottle of water and Marinette gulps it down. She leans her head back on the seat of the couch and tries to breathe deeply against her fast-beating heart.

“Well done, babe,” Alya smiles at her, her glasses dangling dangerously off her nose. “I knew you’d get it. You nailed the rest of it too.”

Marinette bumps her shoulder affectionately against Alya’s head. “Thanks. What’s with the lipstick? I thought you said your blog needed attention, not your reflection.”

Alya sticks her tongue out. “Nino and I are going to check out this new club that just opened up tomorrow. ‘Papillon’, it’s called. They’re really hyping it up online. Want to come?”

“No, thanks.” Marinette shakes her head. She’s never been one for clubs, even if she enjoys the atmosphere on the dancefloor. Everything is always so sticky. “You guys have fun though.”

“You sure? It’s going to be our scene, our music, our people. Hip hop and b-boying and such.”

“I don’t want to third-wheel, thanks.”

Alya lightly smacks the top of her head. “You’d enjoy it.”

Marinette makes a noncommittal noise, drawing her knees up into her chest and resting her chin atop.

“So what are you going to do with it?” Alya asks, staring at Marinette through the mirrored wall.

Marinette ignores her gaze and raises a puzzled eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“The routine. What are you going to do with it?”

“I’m not going to do anything with it. Just like every other routine.” She knows exactly where this is going, and even after the hundredth time it manages to pull regret out from her heart and an aching in her body. She takes another drink and looks away from the Alya on the couch to the Alya in the mirror.

That Alya looks compassionately at her too, pointing the lipstick right at her. “Marinette ma belle, you were born to dance.”

“I _am_ dancing,” she says in a small, pained voice.

“But you can do so much more than you’re letting yourself! Audition for squad on Saturday.”

Marinette laughs humorlessly. “Alya, I don’t know what to tell you. If you can find a way for me to dance without losing my place at the academy, I’m all for it.”

“Just wear a disguise—like Chat Noir.” Alya covers her face with her hands for emphasis.

“Are we really calling him that?”

“It’s a good name.”

“Because you came up with it.”

“Case in point. Anyway, what I mean is no one can see his face. You don’t even have to give your real for this competition. We don’t know his real name. Who knows; maybe he’s in the same position as you are.”

“Uhuh. If you have any of his magic greasepaint handy, let me know.”

“Don’t be silly. Normal greasepaint would work just fine. Or—” Alya rolls over to swipe her lipstick over the upper half of Marinette’s face, ignoring her when she protests and tries to push her away “—lipstick! There. Completely unrecognisable.”

Marinette purses her lips at Alya, but when she catches sight of herself in the mirror she can’t help laughing. The jagged streaks of bright red do change her features, if only a little. But she looks ridiculous.

“Only because I look like a toddler drew on my face while I was sleeping,” she says, grinning at Alya.

Alya shrugs. “Hey, it’s working. No one’s going to be looking at your face anyway.” Her eyes turn serious. “You are so much more amazing than you think. Will you at least give it a shot?”

Marinette sighs and pushes herself off the floor, jumping up and down to get her blood flowing. She practices her turn again before meeting Alya’s gaze.

“I’ll think about it,” she says slowly. Entering in such a competition could blow her future out like a candle flame. She’s already in a precarious position as a scholarship student, she doesn’t want to upset the balance in her life. If her performance in class drops, she’s out. Her parents can’t afford to keep her in the academy, and her part-time job at the ice cream parlour won’t help nearly enough. If she doesn’t get through this school, she’ll have nothing.

But a small part of her recognises that Alya’s right. She _wants_ to dance like this. She wants to perform like this. In front of people and crowds, feeling their energy pulsing in her veins the more she dances. This small part of her, no matter how much she tries to quash it, wants more, and it frightens her.

“That’ll do.”

Marinette nods and looks down to her feet. “Let’s go from the top again.”

The music starts playing, and despite the conflicted knots in her gut, she executes the routine perfectly.

 

_______________

 

That night in her room, Marinette tries on the new dancing shoes. They’re comfortable to dance in, a good fit. She wears them in class the next day, and when Adrien gives her a radiant smile she decides that the fit might just be perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> adrien, my love


	3. dip and step

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> all the ladynoir wow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting this 2 days after chp 3 bc ao3 did a number on me :)))
> 
> i'd already written most of the club scene before because i wrote it as a drabble for this au then decided to make a multichapter out of this, so a little of this chapter is recycled, but changed to fit in with the rest of it.
> 
> ANYWAYS, thank you very much to my beta again, [Ran](https://secure.archiveofourown.org/users/Ran/pseuds/Ran) here and [lay-it-on-me-lahey](http://lay-it-on-me-lahey.tumblr.com) on tumblr. (you super cool awesome person you.) and to everyone who likes this!
> 
> i forgot to note the songs sorry: 'how i want ya (dawin remix)' by hudson thames, hailee steinfeld & 'good times roll' by griz, big gigantic

_honest eyes, no disguise_ \- how i want ya (dawin remix); hudson thames, hailee steinfeld

 _put your hands on my body, swear i seen you before, i think i remember those eyes eyes eyes_ \- dj got us fallin’ in love again (feat. pitbull); usher

 _two dancing shoes and my friends with me_ \- good times roll; griz, big gigantic

* * *

 

Marinette hesitates for only a moment before smearing the red greasepaint on her fingers onto her face. She covers her eyes, nose and half of her forehead before she’s satisfied. The paint is cold on her skin but it sparks a hot excitement inside her, clashing with the nervous butterflies in her gut.

 _This is real,_ she thought to herself. _I’m doing this._

Of course ‘this’ is crazy. Absolutely mad. A dangerous, spur-of-the-moment decision that she probably should have thought through. She’s even spent the majority of the day trying to convince herself _not_ to do it. There are likely dents in her floorboards from all the pacing she’s done.

For the past day and a half, Alya’s urges to dance like she wants to have echoed in her mind. They consume her thoughts like nothing else, and every minute more she thought about it, the more she wanted to break out of her shell and audition for the squad. So she’s decided to check the ‘Papillon’ nightclub beforehand, to edge into these dangerous waters one toe at a time.

The yellow post-it note with the address to Papillon almost glows in the dim light of her room. Alya had stuck it to her desktop screen this afternoon at the same time she threw Marinette the tub of red greasepaint, “just in case you decide to stop being ridiculous.” The letters are already seared into her mind, rubbed into the tips of her fingers, but she tucks the slip of paper into her pocket anyway.

There are no rules against enjoying the Parisian nightlife outside of hours in the academy. Freestyle jams, on the other hand, are not encouraged, even if they aren’t outright prohibited. It’s an iron-hard, unspoken code of the academy. She’s not planning on dancing, but she’d rather be safe behind a mask anyway. If someone recognises her, she could be in trouble. It can’t hurt to watch, to stand at the side lines and just feel the atmosphere, test her limits.

She takes one last look at herself in the mirror, plucking at the red spandex crop top and straightening her trousers. She smooths stray hairs into the two pigtails she’s made with her hair. The red high-tops she’d gotten in the lost and found earlier in the week fit snugly around her feet. She still hasn’t gotten round to giving them back.

Taking a deep breath, she throws on a black hoodie before she leaves, jogging down the bakery stairs as quickly and quietly as she can to avoid waking her parents.

The journey to the club is short, not nearly long enough to allow her to overthink the situation, but not short enough to quash the apprehension rising in her throat. She takes comfort in the cool breeze that curls around the back of her neck under her hood, trying to calm herself.

When she arrives outside the club, she thinks she’s made a mistake. It is entirely unassuming; a shabby warehouse on a street full of shabby warehouses. She can’t hear a thing coming from it, there is no open door spilling flashing lights and drunken laughter onto the footpath. There isn’t even a bouncer in front of the dirty metal door checking for IDs or glowering at the few passers by. A thrill of adventure, of secrecy, prickles along her spine.

“You can do this,” she says to herself, wrapping her hand around the wide metal handle. It’s grimy so she adjusts the grip of her fingers around the base of the metal before she pushes it open. Mild terror prickles along her skin, raising goosebumps. The heavy beat of the music from inside engulfs her in a roar and pulses in her ribcage, her heart speeding up to match. It drowns the buzzing of nerves in her gut, giving her enough of a confidence boost to push through the thick horde standing right inside door. She walks through a tagged hallway that’s faintly lit with blue light, the air thick with the smell of weed.

Every time she lifts her feet there’s a horrible unsticking sound coming from her high-tops. Dark eyes watch her as she passes, and she sees half-hidden bouncers dotted through the hallway. They’re alert and analytical, their glares quietly dangerous.

Her breath catches in her throat when she sees the cavernous inside. For opening night, it isn’t as full as she’d imagined. The actual club is dark with pulsing red and green lights. Low, criss-crossing steel beams contrast with a high ceiling. There’s a bar shoved to the wall on one side, surrounded by a swarm of baggy trousers, tight tops, and bare skin. A turntable and its DJ sit on a raised platform against the far wall. A sprawling dance floor takes up the majority of the club full of writhing bodies save a loose ring in the centre that circles a lone dancer. The mass of people moves as one, a strange, pulsing creature, even as different people whoop and shout to the music. The flashing lights and intermittent darkness steal their features, and with that, their individuality.

In the very centre of the circle one dancer clad in black moves to the heavy beat of the music. Her eyes catch on the neon green of his shoes. _Chat Noir_. He’s still wearing that awfully thick-looking baggy black clothing. The familiar unfamiliarity  of him eases some of the tension in her chest.

She is again entranced by the way he moves. His body flows naturally and expertly through the dance. He is the heart of the song, painting the notes in the air with his arms and feet, kicking and stepping in time with melody. She watches him in a trance as he rolls his body and drops to the floor, twisting swiftly into a windmill and shifting effortlessly into a head spin. His body moves like it knows the song better than the person who wrote it.

Marinette pushes her way through the horde, muttering unheard apologies. Glad for her smaller stature for once she stumbles out to the inside rim of the ring, locking her eyes again on Chat Noir and watching him like she did the first time. He is completely in his element—no. He _owns_ this element, like he owns the dance and each individual note that pulls his muscles taut and loose. There is grace in every movement as his dance changes from blocky and stiff to fluid energy. She’s caught in the beauty of him.

He punctuates the last beat of the song with a freeze, balancing on one hand and pushing his legs straight up in the air. She can see the tension in the muscles of his arms as he holds the pose for a moment, two, three moments longer before dropping down to his feet.

Cheers and applause break out and swallow the crowd. Chat Noir straightens and looks up, a wild grin on his face. Those alarmingly green eyes of his flash dangerously, the light in them is pulsing as his chest heaves from adrenaline and exertion. He is again hidden in the black greasepaint that’s smeared over the top half of his face, similar to her wash of red, and his features slip into the darkness of his hood, still unrecognisable. She catches a blond fringe though, dark with sweat and sticking to his forehead and the sides of his face. He bites his lip and grips the back of his neck one hand and squeezes his other into a fist. He spins around and pumps his fist into the air, vaulting himself into an aerial and landing with another chorus of howling cheers. She smiles at his boundless energy, the high of perfectly executing a routine a familiar buzz in her blood.

The roaring sound of the cheers pumps the adrenaline through her veins and she takes an involuntary step forward. It’s infectious, the need to move her body with the energy in the room, the energy of Chat Noir.

He catches her movement and his smile twists to a smirk. Her heart thumps clumsily as she tries to see if he recognises her.

“Alright, alright,” yells the DJ through the speakers. “Give it up for Chat Noir! New kid on the block with an unusual name in this business, but I think we’re all willing to roll with it. If those aren’t some of the illest moves I’ve seen this weekend, I’m too drunk.” The crowd shrieks its praise again. “How many of you are up for battling that?”

Whoops chase each other over the bar, friends pushing one another out from the edges of the ring and slamming back into those who pushed them. Taunts rise, clamouring for someone to try their luck.

Marinette sees it all, but when she looks back at Chat Noir he’s still grinning at her.

 _Come on_ , he mouths, jutting his chin at her. He’s daring her, setting a challenge.

She bites her lip. Oh no. She hasn’t come here to dance in a battle, especially in front of such a crowd. These are foreign people in a foreign place with a foreign code. She wants to watch, observe, learn. It’s out of curiosity that she’s here. She just wants explore her own ability in the midst of everyone else, not in front of them.

The DJ yells again for a volunteer and she glances around before looking back at Chat Noir. She knows—impossibly, she _knows_ —he’s raising an eyebrow at her, doubting her resolve.

It’s that doubt that does her in. That and the fact that someone shoves her out from the rim of the circle and sent her stumbling up to the boy. He catches her hand to save her from falling, pulling her upright and bending to press a kiss to her knuckles.

“Gotcha,” he murmurs into them, green eyes burning, just as arrogant as before.

She snatches her hand back, and if her face weren’t red with paint, her blush would be doing the job. It’s enough that she’s embarrassing herself by being clumsy, he doesn’t have to add to it. His laugh is lost in the roaring of the crowd.

“Yo!” cries the DJ’s voice. “We got a taker! Bug-sized thing by the looks of it. How about we start it off easy?”

She rolls her eyes in the direction of the turntable. She’s not _that_ small. The techno beat of the song resonates in her heart before it goes anywhere else. Chat Noir steps back to give her space, yelling encouragingly with the crowd, and suddenly she’s alone in the centre of the ring with all eyes on her. She shucks off her hoodie and throws it at him, maybe to wipe that smirk off his face, maybe because she feels too warm. He catches it in one hand and winks at her.

“You can do this,” she says to herself. She tries to convince herself that it’s just an audition, that she’s done this a hundred times over. She loosens her limbs with moves that aren’t really moves but that flow with the rhythm.

She finds her hook with the first words in the song, throwing her hand out and thumping her feet on the floor.

_It’s the king of the dance floor—_

She dances, rising with crescendos and dropping with the jerks of the beat. She lets her body take control. Thrust and flip and stomp-slide, pointe and split and roll. Her style is less of a true hip-hop, more of a hybrid of contemporary and break dancing. She can feel the surprise rippling through the crowd, before the excitement sparks and they’re whooping in encouragement.

_All I want is you—_

As the chorus kicks off she catches Chat Noir’s eye again. His eyes are alive and bright, watching every muscle in her body move. As if she’s taking confidence from him she spins to land boldly in front of him and presses her body on him with a roll; thighs, hip, chest. He grabs her waist and sways her hips side to side, sliding her back into the centre of the floor with the force of his hips on hers.

_Oh, how I need you—_

She turns out of his hands and rolls backwards on the floor onto her shoulders, pushing up onto her head and spinning, her legs in plié. She stops the spin and flips upright to step back into him. His arm slides neatly back around her waist and they dance together, weaving in and out of each other’s arms and legs. She can hear the screaming crowd and the yelling DJ and it sparks an electricity in her, fuelling her dance.

_You can’t fight what feels right—_

They move like a cogs in a machine, tight and graceful and intimate. Their lifts are almost perfectly executed, and they move in unison beside one another. There’s a thrill unlike anything she’s ever felt. This is not a regular duet; they dance like they’re made to be the other’s partner. Sensuous and wild and a natural fit. His hands skim her skin and his touch burns more than her muscles.

_Oh, how I want you—_

The last beats are steady and slower, and the two of them move perfectly synchronised through the slides and rolls. He spins her into him for the final bars. She finishes with her back pressed against his torso, one hand in his hair and the other on her leg. His hands are wrapped around her chest and waist, head dipping low into her shoulder. Her hips are pushed back into his. She can feel his pulse under his skin.

They stay like that until the screams of the crowd falter for a moment, breathing heavily, chests moving together like they’re still dancing. Sticky sweat coats her skin. He laughs, soundless and breathless on the skin of her neck and again she feels goosebumps despite the overwhelming heat. She steps out of his hold and looks around, caught in the surging energy of the crowd as they applaud the duo. A smile breaks out on her face and she bounces on her feet, raising her arms and cheering with the crowd.

“You sure are something.”

It’s impossible that she hears him in the deafening noise, but she does, and she turns back to see him beaming at her.

“Not too bad yourself,” she allows, still panting.

His eyes rove all the way down her body and back up again and she feels a dark shiver race up and down her spine. She appraises him equally, taking in the full black-clothed length of him as if it’s her first time seeing him, from his neon green runners to the tips of his little cat ears.

His grin splits impossibly wider. “We make a good team.”

“Mm,” she agrees. His daring is infectious, and she holds out a fist to him.

He bumps it, opening his mouth to speak again when someone yanks on her arm and pulls her right out of the circle. She twists in the grip, trying to slow down before she falls, or makes someone else fall. Flaming locks smack her in the face and suddenly she recognises who’s dragging her.

“Alya, could you maybe slow down?” she shouts over the noise of the music.

Alya doesn’t look at her, nor does she answer, just keeps pulling her towards the exit.

Once out of the club and under the cool night sky, Alya lets go of her arm. She’s frowning and Marinette opens her mouth to explain, to find an excuse when Alya cuts her off with shake of her head. She pulls her phone out and Marinette watches her send a quick text to Nino before she looks at her again.

“Chloé Bourgeois was in there,” she says and Marinette feels her stomach drop like a stone.

“What?” she squeaks, flapping her hands. This is it. The end of her career. Chloé won’t stop until Marinette is thrown out of the academy. “Did she see me? Did she recognise me? What are we still doing here? Alya, oh my g—”

Alya shushes her and looks around urgently, as if Chloé’s spies are going to pop up out of nowhere and take photographic evidence.

“Why did you take off your hoodie?” she hisses, tugging her own jacket off and wrapping it around Marinette’s shoulders. “We have to wait for Nino.”

Marinette tugs the edges of it around herself and backs up into the brick wall of the building. Chloé will ensure Marinette will never dance again. Probably through physical injury. Her parents won’t be able to pay for her physical therapy and they’ll lose the bakery. She won’t be able to find a good job. She’ll be homeless with no money to shower and buy clothes, the ice cream parlour throwing her out because she’ll have greasy hair.

Alya opens the door to the club again and shuts it before turning back to her friend with a grin. Marinette doesn’t know how she can be taking this so lightly. Alya rolls her eyes at Marinette’s panicked stare.

“The good news,” she says, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, “is that you absolutely killed it out there. Why didn’t you text me? I could’ve got the DJ to set you up with something good!”

“Alya!” Marinette says, anxiety clawing up her throat. “Can you be serious for a second please? Chloé _Bourgeois_ , might have seen me!”

“Babe, everyone saw you.”

Marinette groans and slides down the wall.

“That’s not a bad thing!” Alya insists, joining her on the ground and squeezing Marinette’s hand. “You were amazing. Everyone is raving about you.”

Marinette glares at her.

“You know this means you totally have to audition tomorrow, right? Especially—” she speaks louder over Marinette’s protests “—if it turns out the disguise works.”

Marinette has no argument. She just closes her eyes and tries not to let the panic choke her. It has to be on the one night that she toes the line that her luck runs out.

The door to the club opens again and Nino takes his seat on Marinette’s other side, pressing a comforting shoulder against hers. “Bro, you really know how to give them a show.”

His warm voice does something to ease the knot of worry in Marinette’s and she offers him her free hand in thanks. The three of them sit like that for a few minutes until the ground is too cold for them and they stuff themselves in a taxi and go to Nino’s house.

She makes crèpes, Nino plays them what he’s working on, and Alya reads them tweets by people who were at Papillon. Her feed is blowing up about Marinette and her dancing.

“‘Sickest moves ever,’” she reads through a mouthful of crèpe and nutella. “‘So unreal, I’m pretty sure I was too high.’ This is so great. Marinette, if you get this reaction freestyling—oh Nino, that’s a good bridge—imagine what could happen with choreographed routines!”

Alya’s excitement rubbing off on her, Marinette grins and looks at Nino. “She’s right Nino, that’s a really good bridge.”

“Thanks, bro.”

“Marinette!” Alya cries, wincing when Nino shoots her a sharp look to keep it down. “You’re safe! Chloé just tweeted—”

Nino interrupts, “You follow Chloé on twitter?”

“Know your enemy, my friend. Anyway, she says, ‘Mystery b-girl on the floor of Papillon’ with five gross pink hearts. Do you know what this means?”

“She’s super gay for Marinette?”

Marinette sticks her tongue out at him.

Alya waves his comment away. “Apart from that. Girl, it means she didn’t recognise you! ‘Mystery b-girl’. She doesn’t know who you are. The disguise worked!” She squeezes Marinette into a hug. “Chat Noir is a genius. Remind me to send him flowers.”

“Does this mean you’re auditioning, Marinette?” Nino asks.

Marinette sighs, but it seems like her bad luck has turned. Riding on the high of her performance and hanging out with her friends, she nods.

She can do this. With support from Alya and Nino, and the protection of her new secret identity, she thinks that they just might get away with it.

 

_______________

 

It’s early afternoon by the time Marinette arrives at the skate park, the audition already in full swing. The park is crawling with dancers, all watching attentively from the sidelines of the basketball court. The audition process is simple and informal: battle. Any dancer that wants to try out for the squad jumps into the centre of the court and battles whichever dancer came before them. Alya and the rest of the squad choose you, or they don’t.

On the other side of park, the skaters are putting on a display of their most dangerous and impressive tricks to show off against the dancers. The soccer players have given up trying to play on the sidelines of the court and have resorted to watching the various shows of freestyling and skating and cheering for the better performers.

The jittery nerves of everyone around her bounce off Marinette. She feels untouchable, back in her spandex and red grease paint, the anonymity giving her a new high to ride on. She had stopped in the bakery on her way over from Nino’s house so she could reapply the paint and she could change into her black shorts and a loose crop top. She revels in the feeling of the sun shining on her bare arms and legs, a new kind of freedom buzzing at her fingertips.

The three of them had agreed that it would be too conspicuous if Marinette arrived with Alya and Nino; everyone would immediately know it was her. She wants to maintain a professional distance so no one can suspect her.

As she makes her way toward the crowd, heads turn. They watch her walk up to the wall by the side of the court. People turn from the dancing to peer at her, whispers flying from mouths to ears, indiscernible in the masses.

Something about being in the spotlight gives her a spring in her step, curls her lips into a smile. She feels proud and confident with the mask on her face and the strength in her limbs. She spins around as she walks, trying to find her friends when she bumps into someone from behind. They fumble in each other’s arms for a second before she catches them in a dip, feet planted firmly on the ground.

Chat Noir grins up at her. “You sure know how to knock a guy off his feet.”

She raises an eyebrow, pulling him back up. His hand lingers in hers and she tugs away, crossing her arms. Again, he’s wearing his thick black disguise. If he doesn’t change one of these days, Marinette’s going to give him something herself. He’ll get heatstroke if he keeps dancing like that.

Close to him in the light of day she can see the angles of his features: his straight nose and high cheekbones that slope into a less sharp jaw, his face perfectly symmetrical.

“Very funny,” she says flatly.

“I try.”

She rolls her eyes.

“You left so soon last night, Ladybug.”

Hold on. “Ladybug?”

“That’s what they were calling you after you left. I have to admit it fits.” He gestures to her attire.

Marinette looks down at her black-on-red polkadotted top. Exactly like a ladybug. Huh. She glances around at the people within earshot of their conversation.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “I guess it does.”

“Are you auditioning?” he asks. “It would be nice to be on the same team again.”

“Assuming you’ll get on it.”

“Assuming.” He winks at her and holds out his arm.

She shakes her head at him and ignores the arm, walking around the the edge of the audition crowd. He follows behind like her shadow and they both watch as a boy destroys another boy on the court, his jookin dance moves like nothing she’s ever seen before. If it’s people like this they’ll have on the squad this year, they’re going to be hard to beat.

The boy makes the mistake of looking at her. The excitement in his eyes, fresh with his win, dares her to step forward and make herself known. His smile is wild with victory.

But Marinette is wearing her power like armour and she’s planning to conquer.

Marinette looks for Nino sitting on the ground with his laptop and speakers and gives him a nod and he changes tracks. She swings her hips and claps her hands to the beat as she walks out. When the lyrics start, so does she, pushing the boy back to the edges of the court.

She takes a few steps back and launches herself into a backward somersault, landing on a burst of cheering and applause from others. She catches Chat Noir’s eye and winks before jumping into the dance. She lets the rhythm move her body and throws in a few moves that she hasn’t completely tried yet.

She feels adventurous and experimental. An idea flickers in her head like a lightbulb.

Right at the peak, she mouths along with the words of the song to the crowd, ‘ _Don’t that feel real funky y’all?’_

The bass drops and Marinette shoots her hand out with it, striking a pose and curling her fingers in to beckon to Chat Noir. He grins at her and skids in to face her, rolling his body in time with hers. They dance together and it’s like a revival of the night before. They are in almost perfect synchronisation, even if their dance moves are different. She knows when to spin and drop to let him show his freeze, and he knows when to bend over to let her vault over him, lingering for a moment on his back with a hand and her legs in the air.

She laughs as they dance, and she hears it harmonising with the music and the beats of her heart. When they finish, the cheers of the crowd joins in. No one steps up to battle them.

Marinette holds her fist out to Chat Noir and he bumps it, that wild grin of his flashing across his face like lightning.

“Bien joué,” he pants.

She laughs again, out of breath and jumps into a spinning tuck, riding the wave of her high.

“Look who made squad,” Alya says from her place beside Nino. She beams at them and Marinette grins back. Even the boy they battled is smiling.

The very _rightness_ of the situation races through her bloodstream with her adrenaline. This is where she can have fun. This is something new and unexplored that she can spend her time figuring out.

“You’re right,” she says to Chat Noir, nudging him with her elbow.

“I am?”

“We make a good team.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos to you if you get the (very very mild) origins ref


	4. heel turn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dedicated to [ran](https://secure.archiveofourown.org/users/Ran/pseuds/Ran), the real mvp

_whatchu gon do with that dessert_ \- dessert (remix); dawin, silentó

* * *

 

Marinette zig zags in between the tables in the ice cream parlour, trying to keep the massive sundae stationary on the tray. She’s lucky she manages to make it to the table her friends are sitting at without a disaster. She takes a quiet pride in it.

Nino grins at her from his spot in the booth. His arm is thrown not-so-subtly over the back of the bench i.e. behind Alya’s shoulders. Marinette resists a groan.

“Nice of you to join us,” he grins at her.

“Where do you work again, Nino?” she asks airily.

His grin falls. Good.

“Can you put it in the middle please, Marinette?” Alya asks, eyes glued to her laptop screen.

“No thanks.”

Alya looks up. “What? Why?”

Marinette rolls her eyes at the whine in her voice. “You owe me for the last five sundaes. If I keep putting it on my tab 1—” she puts up a finger of her free hand “—Mme Kurtzberg is going to stop allowing me to do it, and 2—” she puts up another finger “—I won’t have any money left. These things aren’t cheap.”

“I know, that’s why I use your employee discount.”

“I don’t have an employee discount.”

Alya pouts. “Just this once? Last time, I promise.”

Marinette nearly caves from her pout but she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

“You said that last week,” she says.

Nino looks like he’s about to say something but Marinette shoots him a glare. He tried to sneak her the money last time in her apron pocket, but this isn’t his price to pay.

Alya leans back into her seat, arching her brow knowingly.

“Is this because you’re still intent on making Chat Noir some new clothes?”

Heat rushes up Marinette’s neck. “No! I literally have every other thing in my life to save for! The Academy has upped the tuition this year—”

“Yeah,” Nino mutters, “not cool.”

“—demanding a contribution from scholarship students, I still have to pay for Ladybug’s entry for Miraculous—”

“Okay,” Alya points out, “but that’s not due for another few weeks.”

“—and I would actually like to be able to afford some new clothes!”

Alya doesn’t buy it. “His hoodie just really bothers you, doesn’t it?”

Marinette sighs. They’ve had four practices so far and every time, Chat Noir has turned up in his signature thick black hoodie. Sure, it really hides his body, the hood does a good job of keeping his face in the shadows, but the _drawbacks_. He’s going to faint in the heat one of these days and Marinette will have to call an ambulance for him and if he doesn’t recover in time for Miraculous and they’ll be down their best dancer.

“So much. So much, Alya, _I_ get hot just looking at him. I spent more money than I would like on some new fabrics. I’ve pinned the pattern down, all I need are his exact measurements. Also his outfit is an eyesore. It physically pains me to see a dancer in clothes like that. We all deserve nice clothes. It’s one of the ten commandments.”

“It’s definitely not.”

Nino tries to cut in. “You guys know I’ll pay for—”

“NO,” the girls say firmly.

“Then allow me,” says a new voice.

Before she can react, Marinette has a crisp twenty euro note pressed into her free hand courtesy of the sublime Adrien Agreste. The moment she meets his eyes her brain short circuits from an information overload. His friendly, polite smile; his proximity; his hand that is _on her hand_.

“Hrrngh bublng,” Marinette replies.

She immediately wants to dive out the storefront windows.

Adrien frowns in confusion (or maybe it’s concern? When will this boy stop being so good) at her.

She’s not used to him. A week and a half of their tentative friendship and she is still not used to him. She hopes there’s a time limit. She really hopes she doesn’t have to act like a fool 24/7 for the rest of their friendship.

Nino and Marinette have taken to hanging out with him at the academy. He’s good company. Nino warmed up to him immediately and Marinette can definitely see why. Adrien is charming, kind, warm, and can even be occasionally funny. He’s relaxed enough in demeanour to keep up with Nino and passionate enough to keep Marinette interested.

And he’s really, really smart. (It’s kind of a turn on.)

They’d invited him to the parlour this afternoon. Alya, being in university, hasn’t met him before today.

Adrien is about to ask her what’s wrong, she can see it, when Alya comes swooping in to rescue her.

“I am not paying you back twenty euro, Agreste,” she says, plucking a spoon from the tray when Marinette sets it down. “But thanks.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Alya,” he says, holding out his hand. “And there’s nothing to thank me for.”

Alya quirks an eyebrow and smiles. _Alya approved_.

She shakes his hand. “Yeah, yeah, rich boy. Tell me that when you don’t have so much money and you’ll understand why there is.”

When Adrien blushes Marinette has to take a moment to turn her head, mutter “Oh my god” under her breath, and swallow a couple of times before she can turn back with a smile.

“Well thanks from me too,” Marinette says. She is an adult for heaven’s sake, she can talk to a boy. “I’ll get your change now.”

“Keep it,” he says.

She looks at him flatly. “No.”

“Not even as a tip?”

“I don’t take tips from my friends.”

He gives her a strange sort of smile—half-soft, half-uncertain and it’s a testament to her wavering resilience that she’s able to smile back. She doesn’t know what his meant but it sure pulled the pins out of her knees.

“Don’t fight it, Agreste,” Alya says through a mouth full of chocolate deluxe sundae. She shovels in another bite before she continues. “It’s not worth it.”

Marinette finds relief when he turns his head to Alya.

“You’re, uh,” Nino says, “you’re really chomping down into that sundae, Alya.”

Nino is watching her eat with a hilarious blend of mild fear and reverence. Marinette rolls her eyes from behind the cash register and goes back to hand Adrien his change.

“Mmffhmm.”

They all watch as she continues to load in bite after bite. “Have to—” chomp “—squad practice—” chomp “—tonight—” chomp “—have a lot—” chomp “—to organise.”

Chomp.

“You’re going to get brain freeze,” Marinette says, sliding Adrien’s change across the table to him . She might be keeping some semblance of cool right now but if she touches him she will probably spontaneously combust.

“Practice?” Adrien asks.

“Yeah,” Marinette says. “Alya is the captain of this hip hop group. She takes it very seriously.”

Nino winks at her surreptitiously and she aims an equally as surreptitious kick at him under the table.

“And there’s practice tonight.”

Marinette nods. It will be their fourth practice. Adrien hums, his face politely interested.

“There wasn’t meant to be,” Alya says. “But I had to cancel tomorrow so I sent everyone a text this morning, I think. Except this one guy. But he never gave me his number. So I put it up on the Facebook page. I think he’s in the group, but I’m not sure. Either he’s the one with the profile of a vampire—solid black profile pic I shit you not—or I’ve let some random person by the name of ‘Chat Noir’ into it by accident”

“Ah,” Adrien says.

Alya turns to Marinette. “Will you sweet talk Chat Noir into giving us his number please? He seems to have a soft spot for you.”

Marinette snorts. “Sure. As long as you let me take his measurements after practice.”

“Deal.”

“His measurements?” Adrien asks.

Marinette feels shy suddenly, her cheeks heating up again. Sure Adrien is their friend, but he doesn’t know about her hobby. He doesn’t know how she likes to design clothes and dance costumes. It’s something she usually saves for herself, or the people closest to her. If she’s wearing one of the things she’s made and someone asks about it, she’ll tell them, but she’s never really talked about it with someone who hasn’t been _in_ with her.

(Never mind someone she’s hopelessly crushing on.)

Alya beats her to it. “Marinette has this thing where she likes to design clothes and apparently this Chat Noir kid is wearing something that’s driving her crazy. She thinks he’s suffocating himself. So she wants his measurements to design something to help him not die of heatstroke.”

“Alya!” Marinette hisses. “You’re making me sound like I’m obsessed!”

“Honey, that kid has no idea the value of a Marinette-made outfit. You’re probably gonna make it look cooler than anything he’s ever worn in his life. He doesn’t seem like he’d know fashion if he were dropped into an issue of Vogue.”

Adrien coughs lightly, his grin sun bright. “I think that’s really generous of you, Marinette. You obviously don’t have to do it, but even the thought of it is especially kind.”

Marinette can’t keep eye contact. It’s bad enough her whole heart has melted at the compliment, but with his eyes on her it’s like her skin is going to drip off any second now too.

“Yes, well,” she mumbles. “It’s mostly because I need to get his size for the squad’s uniforms.”

Nino shrugs. “Or you’re actually cool with becoming his friend and you’re doing something nice. That works too, you know.”

“Shut up and eat your ice cream.” She wipes her hands on her apron. “I’ll see you after practice Alya.”

“Sure thing, girl.”

She hesitates but then, “I’ll see you later, Adrien?”

“I’ll see you later, Marinette.”

She smiles back.

~

“You’re—going to die—just so you know.”

Marinette tries to keep her voice under the volume of the music as she twists around Chat Noir.

“Don’t worry—” he drops low as she opens her legs in a wide plié in front of him “—my Lady—” he slides through and weaves his body upright “—this alley cat—” they slide into formation with the rest of the group “—knows how to—” he spins away for his solo and she when he finishes she slides right back in beside him “—protect himself.”

His last words are punctuated with a big grin.

She rolls her eyes and concentrates on the routine for the last few bars of the song, the warmth of his smile lingering in the air.

Or maybe it’s the heat radiating off him because he’s back in that ridiculous hoodie.

He’s so hot, little black-tinted beads of sweat are rolling down his cheeks and dropping off his sharp jaw. His face is red beneath his grease paint and he’s panting hard.

He’s not going to get relief anytime soon either. Marinette can see Alya’s frown from where she stands by the end of the hall and it’s aimed right at him. She’s working herself up to chew Chat Noir out for arriving 20 minutes late to practice.

If there’s one thing Alya likes it’s punctuality, and one of her dancers late for practice is enough to make her sour for the next couple of hours.

The group finishes the routine and Marinette turns, panting, to where Chat Noir stands.

“Why were you late anyway?”

Before he can answer, Alya’s loud voice calls through the hall.

“Alright kids. Stretch out, that’s enough for today.”

Marinette offers him a sympathetic smile and touches his forearm.

“Good luck,” she whispers, before running off to grab her water bottle and duffel bag. If she didn’t have to change and take off her stage makeup, Marinette would have stuck around a little longer. She and Chat Noir have settled into a routine of easy conversation as they cool down and stretch out at the end of practice.

She almost can’t believe how well they get on. His jokes are cheesy and he’s a little liberal with his charms but there is an endless and intriguing amount of intellect in those eyes of his. They talk about anything, having strayed from the topic of dancing after their first practice and Marinette has found it’s just as easy to talk to him about everything else. Of course, neither of them divulge too many personal details, but there is a natural flow to their friendship that strengthens every time they meet.

So it pains her a little to rush off now and leave him to the dogs. Alya rather.

But she’s doing this for his sake. If she can change and catch her breath quickly enough, maybe Alya won’t have enough time to get really mad at Chat. She can already hear Alya raising her voice a little from her bathroom stall.

Once she’s pulled on a new set of clothes, wiped her face, and her cheeks pull off a rosy glow more than tomato red look, she sprints out of the bathroom and back to the dance hall, tucking her sweaty and gross ponytail into a cap.

“I’m here!” she calls, wincing as she interrupts Alya’s scolding. Her words echo in the room, empty now but for Alya and Chat Noir. They probably high tailed it as soon as Alya started on him.

But now, Alya rounds on Marinette, eyes flashing. It’s definitely something to be able to take on an angry Alya, but she’d rather have it be her than Chat Noir, who looks like someone told him he couldn’t dance again. She probably gave him the whole spiel of “letting the crew down”, and the poor kid seems to have really taken it to heart.

She smiles at him and he gives her a small one back.

“Hey, Princess,” he says.

“Hi, Chat Noir,” she says.

Alya purses her lips. “Marinette. He’s all yours.”

“I’m—what? Hers—what—”

“Stop talking, Chat Noir. Be glad Marinette took pity on you and came in so early. Don’t be late again. This is a strike on your record.” She retrieves her iPod and leaves, shooting Marinette a pointed look.

He looks so surprised that Marinette laughs, as if he’s never had anything but a clean record. It’s strangely contradictory to what she would have thought about him. A guy like him who, so arrogant and cheeky, one would imagine his record anywhere to be full of spots.

“Now—” Marinette says.

“I have a record here?”

“Of course you do. Alya takes this very seriously and so should you.”

He grins and his whole body relaxes. “I take this as seriously as I take our relationship, Princess.”

She blinks at him. “Great. Then as a show of good will for this _relationship_ , you’ll hold your arms out and let me take your measurements. I need them for the squad’s uniform.”

She studiously avoids his eyes for that last sentence, rummaging around in her duffel for her measuring tape and hoping her excuse is enough. It technically _isn’t_ a lie, but the whole truth would just lead to him teasing her for it and she doesn’t want to give him chances he wouldn’t ordinarily have. This isn’t the first time Chat Noir has met Marinette after their initial encounter, but he hasn’t stopped teasing her as much as he did the first day.

He frowns slightly. “Have you gotten Ladybug’s measurements yet?”

The question catches her off guard. “Uh-uhm, yeah. I have. She gave—I got them when she came over. The other night. To my house.” She clears her throat and pretends to flatten out a wrinkle in her tape, praying the lie doesn’t sound as bad to Chat Noir as it does to her.

“Wait,” he says, and she cringes, ready for an accusation she’ll also have to lie her way out of, but he surprises her. “You know Ladybug personally?”

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “We’ve known each other for a long time. She’s… nice.”

“Cool,” he breathes, and the admiration in his voice almost makes her wince. She bites her lip instead.

She’s tired of this already—all this secrecy. It weighs down on her having to lie to her parents about what she’s doing, of not being able to tell them how proud she is about being able to dance like this. It’s exhausting going into school every morning afraid she’ll somehow slip in her movements and her teachers will realise she has been dancing very differently to how they’ve been instructing her.

But lying to Chat Noir is fast becoming the worst part of this all. He and Ladybug are becoming fast friends, but so are he and Marinette. There’s something she has with him, some lightning-strong connection, that she’s never encountered before and even if they have only known each other a few weeks, they’re close. He’s a brilliant person even beyond the dancing and Marinette hates this game, especially when he believes her.

If she didn’t have Alya and Nino to talk to and to support her, she doesn’t know what she would do.

She sighs quietly when she motions for him to raise his arms.

“So do you like fashion then?” he says. His voice is lacking the laughter it usually has, strangely soft, and it makes her look up to meet his eyes.

Marinette measures his arm, deciding if she wants to answer.

“Yeah,” she says, after taking note of it and moving on to the other one. “I’ve been into it ever since I could remember. I like to sew and knit and design. I like to look at all the fashion magazines I can get my hands on and then make up my own. I like fashion.”

He hums. “Do you have any favourite designers?”

She snorts. “Why, are you looking for tips? Because—and I say this as your friend—you could probably use some.”

He pokes her in the stomach, making her squeak and lose track of measuring his torso. His smile is fond.

“Really,” he presses.

She sighs. “Gabriel Agreste.”

She can feel him tense from where she measures his waist, probably tickling him.

“Sorry,” she murmurs.

“Why?”

“Why am I sorry?”

“No. Why Gabriel Agreste?”

Marinette writes the measurement down and straightens to look at him. He’s looking at her like there’s something fundamental about her he doesn’t understand.

“He’s very clean,” she says slowly, feeling a little unsettled under his gaze. “All his lines are careful and beautiful and perfectly elegant. If royalty were a style of fashion, Agreste would be it. It reminds me of how much there is to admire in fashion like that, and how much of a challenge it is.”

“A challenge?”

“Yeah.” She pokes at his legs to get him to spread them. “To go against that kind of fashion. To take all those perfect, brilliant lines and throw them out the window. Take the route no one has, you know?”

His eyes haven’t changed when she glances up at him and it makes her jut her chin out, defensive, even if she doesn’t know why she’s reacting like this.

“That’s…” he pauses. “A really inspired way to look at it.”

“Thanks,” she says slowly, straightening and putting away her instruments. “Now. I want to talk to you about something.”

His eyes brighten, immediately losing that faraway, thoughtful look. “Oh?” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively and she punches his shoulder (not very lightly).

“I need you to wear something lighter to the next squad practice. You can’t keep dancing in hoodies this thick, it’s going to kill you. I’ll know if you don’t.”

He looks at her surprised for a moment before releasing a bark of laughter.

“I’m not joking! Did you even bring a bottle of water to practice?”

His smile is wide as the whole sun. “In my defence, I was rushing to get here on time.”

“You were late.”

“I was rushing to _try_ to get here on time.”

She raises her eyebrows at him. “Whatever. Wear a t-shirt or something on Sunday, okay?”

“I would, Princess,” he frowns, “but the hoodie helps with the whole hidden identity thing.”

“No one is going to recognise your biceps if that’s what you’re worried about.”

She gives him a look before he can reply.

“You’re going to faint from dehydration one of these days,” she says.

He pouts. “But I can’t cover my face if I don’t have a hood.”

“I don’t know if you’ve seen yourself recently—consider the walls are mirrors here—but your whole face is painted black. Who could possibly recognise you?”

He laughs, but it’s a weaker sound than she’s used to hearing from him. “I would feel more comfortable with additional protection.”

She rolls her eyes at his wording but pulls her cap off her head anyway. “Fine.”

She reaches for his hood slowly, giving him time to duck away, and when he doesn’t, pushes it back off his head. His eyes don’t leave her face as she fits her cap snugly on his head, searching again, but she ignores them.

“There,” she says. “It’s black and it casts a shadow. Fits perfectly with your aesthetic, no?”

He looks up to catch his reflection in the mirror and when he sees how it still disguises him he grins.

“Ah!” he exclaims. “It’s perfect Princess, thank you!” He takes her hand and twirls her around, catching her by surprise.

She laughs despite herself and when he stops to kiss her knuckles she’s still giggling.

“Thank you,” he purrs, and his face is so annoyingly charming that she pushes him away by the nose.

“You’re shameless,” she says, but it falls flat with her smile.

His pout doesn’t seem all that sincere either.

“And late,” he says, pulling his phone from his pocket and checking the time. “Well, Princess, this is where I must leave you.”

He goes to leave when she remembers. “Oh! Before you go, can I have your number please? Alya isn’t sure you’re getting all her messages about the squad, and she thinks it might be easier if I can pass along the message.”

He looks like she threatened to kick a kitten, puzzling her thoroughly.

“I, uh,” she tries, “won’t give it to anyone if that’s what you’re worried about.”

His mouth opens, then closes. Then opens again. Then closes.

“Chat?” she asks.

“I—” he says weakly. “Don’t have a phone.” They both look at it, then back at one another. Another few moments pass. “OkaysorryMarinettebye!”

She doesn’t even catch her breath before he’s gone, sprinting out like his tail is on fire.

“I—” she says.

What just happened?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome back


	5. inside partner step

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks [ran](https://secure.archiveofourown.org/users/Ran/pseuds/Ran) <3

_ your gravity’s making me dizzy _ \- star girl; mcfly

_ lot of people take it for a game _ \- love is strange; mickey & sylvia

* * *

 

Everything is better upside down. Being a dancer and therefore an amateur artist of the upside down, Marinette is very much certain of this. You can’t take anything as seriously as you can when you’re upright.

Example: Marinette is holding a headstand in front of the mirror in her little abandoned studio and she simply can’t take any of her problems seriously as she slowly watches her face go red. Her cheeks look rounder and slightly chipmunk-like, and her eyes are getting very glassy. When she switches her feet from flexing to pointing she feels like she’s back in her beginner’s ballet class.

So when she thinks about Chloé and Adrien and her whole future as a dancer, it’s not really quite as upsetting as it was this afternoon.

But it’s still the only thing she can think about.

This morning was when Mme Bustier gave them their partners for their duets at the showcase.

Marinette, to her initial delight and subsequent terror-that-kind-of-feels-like-excitement-but-is-also-definitely-fear, has been paired with Adrien Agreste. He’d seemed pretty content with the idea too. He’d bumped her shoulder and smiled down at her with a, “Guess you’re stuck with me for a little while, huh partner?”

Chloé, naturally, had cracked the windows with her outraged shriek. She’d torn the list off the door and shaken it in Marinette’s face.

“How dare you,” she hissed. “You rotten little upstart.”

Marinette rests a foot on the mirror at the memory, pushing into the glass and half-pretending Chloé’s face is underneath it.

Of course, the hardest part of the day was not Chloé’s nasty comments. (Those, she’s used to.) No, because Mme Bustier thought it was practical to have today’s lesson be more of a do-it-yourself workshop. “Partner work” was to be the aim of the lesson and that meant spending an hour and a half practicing  _ partner dance moves _ with Adrien.

It was difficult to remember what she was supposed to be doing half the time—especially when he had his hands on her hips for some of the steps.

Her cheeks redden and it’s not just because of gravity.

But the most daunting aspect of working with Adrien is not that he is Adrien Agreste her crush, but that he is Adrien Agreste world renowned classical dancer. How is she supposed to bring anything to the table when the boy sitting at it has won competitions around the world?

A muffled crash from outside jerks Marinette from her reverie. She wobbles in her headstand. It wouldn’t be the first time a kid from around the neighbourhood came to crash her party. There’s something about old, dilapidated buildings that attracts the young, sharp mind.

She sighs and pushes herself up into a proper handstand, falling into a bridge and standing up out of it. It’s not like she’s getting any practice done anyway. Maybe this is a sign to call it a night and just go home.

Something rattles loudly from near the door and she freezes.

Oh god. What if it’s the police? What if they’re here to arrest her for breaking and entering?

She rushes to grab her hoodie and bag, scooping her phone and speaker into it as the rattling gets louder. They can’t really accuse her of breaking though, the place has been just as shabby looking since she first found it. If anything, it looks  _ better _ . She, Alya, and Nino had spent the summer painting the walls and installing new mirrors.

But wouldn’t that still be defacing property?  _ Shit _ . She doesn’t even know  _ whose _ —

The door knocks her square on her forehead as it opens.

Someone yelps from the other side and Marinette lets out the longest string of curse words she can manage. (It’s hard not to have some of Alya’s habits rub off on her.) She stumbles backwards until suddenly the couch is behind her and she falls upside down onto the seat of it, legs sticking up over the top.

“Sorry!” the policeman says. “There wasn’t supposed to be someone in here!”

It makes her pause in all her painful panic. He’s apologising?

She sits up to peek over the back of the couch between her legs. There’s someone standing halfway in halfway out rubbing the back of their neck awkwardly. Decidedly not a policeman.

She squints at the figure in the doorway. “Chat Noir?”

He freezes then steps forward, letting the light wash over his smile. It’s tight and panicked looking. He hasn’t seen her, Marinette, since he told her he didn’t have a phone to her face while he stood there holding his phone. She’s already allowed him the lie (Ladybug has seen him a few times at practice since and who is she to not look the other way? Besides, Alya’s made sure he’s the one in the Facebook group), but it’s clear from the way his eyes jump around the room that he knows he’s in a bit of a pinch.

“You should have called,” she says lightly, sarcastically, but it’s a joke enough that he’ll know he’s off the hook.

“Hey Princess,” he says, the lines of his body relaxing slowly, his lips curling. “How many curse words do you know? It’s kind of impressive.”

His voice, his familiar face, his presence; all of these combine to soothe a bit of the anxiety in her stomach. She hadn’t realised how much she’d needed to be with a friend. “What are you—hang on.” She shifts out of her uncomfortable position on the couch, stepping over it and leaning against the back. “What are you doing here?”

His smile strains again. “I, uh, know the guy who owns the place. He bought it a few days ago.”

She remembers seeing a ‘Sale Agreed’ notice hanging up outside, but she’d dismissed it as a weird prank. No one has made a move to buy this place in nearly ten years.

“Oh,” she says, a funny feeling in her chest. She’s lost the place. “Okay.”

He shifts his feet, his eyes darting here and there. “He said I could use it.”

“Right.” She’s not really listening to him.

“T-to practice in.”

“Yeah.”

His frown is confused when he asks, “What are you doing here?”

She hesitates. Sharing this place with anyone other than Alya and Nino feels almost wrong. Especially now that they won’t be able to come back. Marinette may not always abide by rules but there’s no way they can break and enter here when Chat Noir knows who they are and is going to start frequenting the place.

Sighing, she goes for the truth anyway.

“I’ve used this place to practice for years. It’s been abandoned for even longer. I figured no one would disturb me here.” She shifts on her own feet and feels her heart wrench at her next words. “I guess I shouldn’t really come here anymore. I’ll um, I’ll get going.”

She goes to pick up her stuff again but Chat Noir’s hand shoots out to catch her wrist.

“Wait!” he says. “Stay.” His unsure expression melts into a grin. “I could always use an audience.”

Marinette rolls her eyes. “How does anyone put up with you?”

“You seem to be doing just fine.” He winks.

She presses her lips together and crosses her arms, weighing her options. If she stays, she can get the practice done now that she was meant to have done an hour ago. And it can’t hurt to have a second opinion, especially from a dancer like Chat Noir.

“Okay,” she says.

“Okay, you’ll stay?”

“Okay, I’ll stay.”

His answering smile is warm enough to pull a reciprocating one out of her.

“But,” she says, shedding herself of her things and going to plug her iPod back in, “we get some work done. I have stuff to do for class. Alya, I’m sure, has stuff she wants you to practice.” The first round of qualifiers for Miraculous is next week. Alya has been working them all into the ground. “Deal?”

“As you wish, Princess.”

She sighs. “And stop—” she gestures to his grin that’s erring on the side of the darkest corners of Papillon. She ignores the thrill it sends through her veins, the pulse of a beat she can feel “—that.”

“Stop what?” he asks innocently, stretching his arms all the way above his head.

“You know exactly what I mean,  _ Prince Charming _ .”

His smile blinds. “So you think I’m charming?”

“Chat, I swear to God.”

 

_______________

 

They do not end up getting any work done. Well, not the way Marinette imagined it would be getting done.

The figurative train derails about two minutes into their respective practices.

Chat Noir immediately launches into what she presumes is a warm up. He’s freestyling to the song that came on when she put her iPod on shuffle, seemingly completely focused on his own body and its movements.

Marinette watches him for a few moments before closing her eyes and trying to let her creativity lead her towards partner moves. Maybe if she prepares, she’ll make less of a fool of herself in front of Adrien tomorrow. She does her very best to work out some dance moves for Mme Bustier’s class tomorrow, but she was silly to think she’d be able to do anything without someone to practice with. She has no way of properly figuring out if her ideas even work. Besides, all of her ideas suck.

Frustrated, she kicks up into a handstand facing the mirror. Here’s to hoping all the blood rushing to her head will help.

It’s a few moments of this strange meditation before she notices that the sounds of runners squeaking on the polished wooden floors have vanished. She can’t hear his heavy breaths either, or sense his movements.

Before she knows it he has kicked up to a handstand too, facing her and leaning his weight against the mirror.

She raises—drops?—her eyebrows. “Cheater.” She shifts her weight on her hands, kind of wishing she’d had the foresight to lean her handstand against the wall too.

He can’t shrug properly, but she can see the sentiment in his expression.

“Choose the better site next time, Princess,” he says, shifting on his hands. “What are we doing here?”

Sighing doesn’t quite work upside down either.

“I am Stumped.” She trusts him to hear the capitalisation.

He hums seriously. He heard it.

“What are you Stumped about?” he asks.

Marinette weighs whether or not to tell him for a moment, then continues with her streak of truth-telling. A part of her knows it’s because not being able to fully own Ladybug as herself is troubling, but she doesn’t really like listening to that part. Besides, she’s being herself with Chat Noir right now, so is she truly lying to him all that much?

“I’m doing a duet at the academy,” she says. “It’s for the possibility of being in the showcase at the end of the semester. Huge opportunity and I—I really want to have a good routine.”

He frowns. “Isn’t this a problem you should be working out with your partner?”

She hesitates. How to explain her insecurity around Adrien Agreste? But Chat’s green eyes are earnest and she hasn’t talked about it all day to anyone. Maybe letting it out will relieve her a little.

“My partner is part of my problem.” He’s still frowning so she rushes to clear any confusion. “Not because I don’t like him or anything. It’s just…”

His frown is throwing her off.

“... It’s just that he’s this amazing, world-renowned dancer,” she says. “Everything he does is golden. He’s so good at this and I just wanted to—I don’t know—”

— _ impress him _ —

“—show him that I can be a good partner too. That he can count on me to get to the showcase. I just—have to be amazing.”

She stares at him, waiting for his reaction. She doesn’t expect him to start laughing.

“Hey!” she frowns. She pokes her foot into his shin. “This is a serious issue!”

He pokes her right back and she tenses, trying to keep from falling.

“I know, I know,” he says, but he looks like he’s trying not to laugh again. “I just don’t know why you of all people would worry.”

She opens her mouth to argue but he gets there before her.

“You’ve already got what it takes to impress him, Princess. You’re in the academy on a full scholarship, right? Doesn’t that mean you’re already amazing?”

She doesn’t answer him, stunned by the compliments. A weight lifts off her and she feels undeniably lighter.

“He’s probably already impressed that he was named as your partner,” Chat says, trying to pull off the compliment as casual with a weird shrug motion, but she smiles at him.

“Thank you, Chat Noir,” she says.

He flashes a grin at her then balances his weight on one arm to cover a yawn with his other hand and it’s so him blatantly showing off his strength that she gives him a light kick to one of his legs to try and throw him off balance.

“You’re so annoying,” she grins, hooking her toes behind his ankle and pulling.

He yelps and she just realises what a bad decision she made because when he starts falling he takes her with him. They land on the floor simultaneously laughing and groaning in pain.

“Your elbow landed in my armpit,” Marinette complains, but her grin belies her tone.

Chat Noir snorts. “Well your knees sure aren’t marshmallows, Princess.”

She opens her mouth to continue their bickering when the track changes and he gasps. A delighted thing that leaves him pushing up into a sitting position and smiling like she suggested they order five pizzas. His hood has fallen off and his hair is a total mess. All of these attributes pull together to make him look five years younger than he is and fondness settles in Marinette’s chest.

“I love this song,” he says.

Marinette listens for a moment, the old 2000s tune feeling very comfortable. She can’t remember putting it on this particular playlist but before she can think too much on it Chat starts doing the air guitar. Without his hood she can see the tips of his ears are a little pink, whether a residue from being upside down or a self-awareness of the embarrassing mouthing along he’s doing to the song, she can’t tell but she finds herself smiling back when he looks at her.

“Nice,” she says. “Who knew the elusive Chat Noir was a fan of boy bands from the 2000s?”

He pauses in his air guitar to grin at her. “Who wasn’t?”

“Fair point.”

“Come on,” he says, tugging at her arms.

“What—” she protests as she lets him pull her to her feet.

“Dance!” he says and when the chorus breaks he’s whisking the two of them across the floor in a truly terrible waltz. Marinette is pretty sure she stepped on Chat Noir’s foot a few times, but he hasn’t said anything about it. She laughs loud and happy and soon he does too. She beats him in a tap-off. He surprises her with her a truly extraordinary display of ballet. Marinette doesn’t forget about her dilemma exactly, but she stops worrying about it so much. By the time they decide it’s too late not to go home there’s something light in her that was heavy that afternoon.

“Thanks, Chat Noir,” she says. She wonders if she could say goodbye to him the way she does her friends. He has more than made it clear that he’s earned a spot in her heart. The moment passes.

He bumps her shoulder with his fist. “You’ll do great, Princess.”

The warmth of his smile follows her home.

**Author's Note:**

> we all know alya is the boss come on
> 
> [tumblr](http://lancmcclaine.tumblr.com)


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